As I wrote a bit earlier my wife and I took 2 days on the beautiful motoryarch The Sun while we were in Sihanoukville, Cambodia.

The Sun is a really nice motoryarch and if my memory serves me well it took the owner Robert Duczek around 3 years to build it – it was build in the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, and sailed do the Mekong river…

The Sun seen from the water

The first floor was a nice “restaurant”, lounge and bar and travelling for hours and hours was not problem at all. Everything went so smooth and organized as only a German can do – Robert was the perfect host and the food was great and Happy Hours was fun!

At the first floor of The Sun


Irina posing at the back of The Sun

Happy Hour at the Sun

Our Captain Robert Duczek and his crew held a “mean” Happy Hour at the Sun – lots of German Schlager music, Scorpions and other good old German stuff, lot’s of Angkor draft (local Cambodian beer) and some exotic cocktails…  you name it..  Robert

And the bar got crowded

I can only recommend to try Robert and The Sun if you come around Sihanoukville…

Wow, I just found the website for Jules Underwater Lodge and is that a special Hotel or what?

Jules Underwater Lodge is a authentic underwater research habitat made into a small Underwater Lodge/hotel.
I find it pretty cool and would definately check it out when I’m close to Key Lago!

Middle of October turned out not to be right for diving, but that didn’t stop my wife and I from getting out into the nice water around Sihanoukville, so we decided to take a full day snorkelling with the beautiful motoryacht Sun. The Sun is a really nice and beautiful motoryacht build, owned and operated by Robert Duczek, who really gives the trip that “German touch” – clean, reliable, practical and after hour (the trip back to Sihanoukville) with drinks, BEERS, German Schlager music and all other “good stuff” from the 70’-90’ies German music scene..
To be honest it was a real pleasure to spend a day at The Sun and we did in fact do it 2 days…

The trip took us to a good snorkeling site at the island Koh Kong Kang and to the bigger island Koh Rung Samloem which was better for some swimming and a walk on the island (do take care of the sandflies!).

At Koh Kong Kang we had a 1 hour stop which was perfect for some snorkeling – I’ve included a couple of pictures taken with my new camera Canon IXUS 110IS and the Waterproof Case WP-DC32.

Lots of fishes around Koh Kong Kang

Corals outside Koh Kong Kang

Koh Kong Kang also has nudibraches

More about the snorkeling trips and The Sun in the next posts….

I can highly recommend always to include the Straits of Tiran in a divetrip to Sharm el Sheikh. The Straits of Tiran is full of corals, fishes and turtles – and at the right time whale sharks, sharks and manta rays.

At a trip to Gordon Reef at the Straits of Tiran I came close to a beautiful sea turtle and it wasn’t really shy – I’ve included a couple of pictures of it here…

Sea turtle at Gorden Reef, Straits of Tiran

Another image of the beautiful Sea Turtle

Before the wedding in end September and the Honeymoon/divetrip to Cambodia I thought it was about time to upgrade my photo equipment a bit. Since 2003 I have been ok with my Sony DSC and waterproof case, but I must admit it was rather slow and getting too old, but all the fuss about also needing to get a new waterproof case had made me wait…  now was the time.
I still prefer a small compact camera because I like to be able to carry it with me in a pocket – I’m not a pro with a huge camera and I do know I will never bring a huge camera with me around…  so my choice was to switch to Canon and the newest compact at that time – the Canon IXUS 110IS and the Waterproof Case WP-DC32.

One of the first underwater photo’s I took with the new equipment was this rather big Sea Star / Starfish I found in the water outside the island Koh Rung Samloem, Cambodia –more about that trip later…

Yeah, unfortunately my trip to Cambodia and Sihanoukville didn’t bring me any new diving experiences. Not because I didn’t want to dive, not because I didn’t have the time to dive (we we’re there for 10 days) and not because Sihanoukville didn’t have some good and experienced dive centers, but just because we were in Sihanoukville a bit to early in the local dive season.

I was already warned before we left – I had already seen that the dive centers in Sihanoukville was telling that the dive season started around beginning November, but I had hoped for some dives in mid/end October when I arrived – that was not possible for several reasons.
First of all the dive centers in Sihanoukville decided to use the off-season for repairing their nice boats and used the rests for 2-3 days trips and secondly a tough storm (just before we arrived) made the visibility on the nearby dive sites a bit of a gamble…  what I really liked here was that ALL dive centers in Sihanoukville were so nice and honest to tell us that they either wouldn’t take us diving at all or that they would recommend waiting a week more…  or so…
So no diving…  seems like the diving in Sihanoukville start from November!

But but…  being on a honeymoon we decided to take a trip with a really nice boat, which also included some nice snorkeling – more about that later.

Leaving today for Thailand and then some diving around Sihanoukville Cambodia – of course the time in Cambodia also means Angkor Wat and Phnom Penh, but we have “allocated” something like 8-10 days for Sihanoukville if the weather and diving is nice….

More to come later!

Koh Chang isn’t really famous for diving or snorkeling and it is certainly possible to find better place in Thailand for that, but but Koh Chang is just such a charming island without too much of the fuss and noise you’ll find at the bigger tourist destinations in Thailand – not said that Koh Chang doesn’t have closed resorts (to make sure the turist doesn’t get to close to the Thais…    ), a couple of girlybars and a couple of clubs, but it’s really nothing like Phuket, Koh Samui or Pattaya – not at all.

But Koh Chang does offer diving and it’s in fact nice – not too crowded..
When I was at Koh Chang with my Girlfriend back in March 2008 we started out with a bit of  snorkeling around an island just off the west coast of Koh Chang – I think it was Ko Su Wan or Ko Rom, just a 20 minutes trip with the speedboat…

There we’re lot of fishes and life on our small snorkeling-trip

A Parrotfish eating

Hard and soft Corals

Lot’s of fishes around soft Coral and a Barrel Coral

As you can see Koh Chang is in fact a nice place to snorkel and combined with Koh Chang being so charming I can only recommend going there…

I have now been doing a bit of reseach on diving Cambodia and I have “only” found diving operations in the beautiful beach city Sihanoukville – all diving in Cambodia seems to start at Sihanoukville.

In Sihanoukville there are 4 diving centers:

Scuba Nation Diving Center
At Serendipity Beach
Scuba Nation offers PADI Open Water Courses at US 455 and boat trip with 2 fun dives at US 85.

The Dive Shop Cambodia
At Serendipity Beach Road
The Dive Shop Cambodia offers PADI Open Water Courses at US 330, but I can’t find their prices for fun dives at the website..

EcoSea Dive Center
At Occhuteal Beach or downtown + several other places.
EcoSea Dive Center is one of the cheapest dive centers in Sihanoukville with PADI Open Water Courses at US 295 and boat trip with 2 fun dives at US 65.

Diving And More
In Downtown
Diving and More  is offering PADI Open Water Courses at US 245 and 2 fun dives at US 70.

That was the rough details, but as I find diving also being a social sport my choice of who to dive with depends mostly on where I like the persons the most…  I mean you have to spend both time on the boat and in the water, so better find some cool people to join.

I really looking forward to check out the diving around Sihanoukville sometimes around end of October – not really sure when exactly we’ll arrive. First we’ll spend a couple of days around Angkor Wat – it should be so beautiful! And on our way down to Sihanoukville we’ll of course take a couple of days in the capital Phnom Penh.

Heading for Cambodia in October and I’m sure there’s going to be some diving included in the trip, as always…

Cambodia is not know for being a big diving country and the diving should be pretty underdeveloped, which in fact could be interesting – I’m sure there will be no queuing at the dive sites.

The diving in Cambodia should mainly from Sihanoukville – if you hear about any other dive hubs do tell me please – and there seems to be only a few dive operators there. I will be back with more information when I start my research on Cambodia diving…

The dive sites are around 1,5 – 2 hours outside Sihanoukville and has names like Koh Rong, Condor Reef, Koh Tang, Koh Mano,  Koh Prins and more…
Gonna be interesting to dive the best of them!